


maybe, but not undoubtedly.

by brainiac



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Pretentiousness, Drinking, First Kiss, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Pretentiousness, Slow Burn, Sobering up via an unreasonable amount of Chinese food and discussions of emotions.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 20:01:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19448542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brainiac/pseuds/brainiac
Summary: Oswald's head lifted, and the bottle slipped from his hand as it did."You know what, old friend? Chinese sounds delicious."





	maybe, but not undoubtedly.

Dysphoria was a concept that wept its way into Edward's life like a stain, a blemish on the paper of his skin, a dissatisfaction that never left its hovel in the cave of his chest. Under the cold rain, and shuffling above the empty streets of Gotham's underbelly, Ed's current unease was with the alien feeling of not being able to grab his hair anymore when he spoke. In Arkham, on that hill of hell, he'd picked and prodded at anything that moved throughout the years to garner reactions. That's when he discovered that he didn't fancy laughter anymore, not the way he used to. Edward would poke an inmate, they'd shriek and holler for weeks, and what little joy he would've normally accumulated from amassing a reaction like that was stolen away in seconds when the guards would howl like coyotes, their cackles still audible hours after they'd disappeared behind a corridor. It wasn't fun. It wasn't _funny_. As time slipped through his spread fingers, Ed would come to find solace only in the reactions he could muster up from himself. He'd no longer surprise his inmates, he'd just pull his hair. He wouldn't scare them, he'd just pinch his skin. The guards couldn't take _those_ distractions away from him, they could just grimace as he grew sores on the places he set his nails to. But without his hair, something he'd evolved to resent behind bars, he realized that it was now as a free man that he wished he could have it back.

Oswald wasn't much for conversation, was the thing. He was mostly one-sided when it came to talking, and when it came to silence, his back was a chilling sight to behold as they continued their stroll. Edward hated not knowing what to say, he hated not knowing what to do, but most of all - he hated not knowing where they were. His fingers brushed over the empty space behind his neck, pretending there was something to tug on, and he quickened his pace.

"Oswald -" he began, shoes clashing into a puddle his stupid green-tinted shades hadn't helped him spot. He glared at the sidewalk, and tried again. "Oswald, seriously, where are we?"

His friend licked his lips and huffed. He'd been doing that for a while now. "My resources," the Penguin started heatedly. "have trickled over the years into a thin puddle of what they once were. _But,_ " he raised a gloved hand, smiling with all the petty joy in the world. "I don't need resources to keep my reputation. There is a place not far that's been reserved for quite some time and kept tidy for me. I trust," he suddenly paused, and Edward had to stop with him in his tracks, balancing on the balls of his feet as he listened. "that a shared bathroom will be fine?"

Ed exhaled a bit of a laugh. "Who am I to complain here, my friend?" he pointed out, waving a hand as he spoke and shaking his head, looking around at the vacant road behind them. "Since when did Arkham ask its residents their thoughts on having to step through another inmate's _piss_ just to wash their hands? I doubt you'll be much worse."

Oswald looked like he would've laughed, but the joke hit too close to home for them both. Perhaps there was a time and place for everything, and perhaps Ed had misjudged the atmosphere that had been tentatively set-up like some sort of social Jenga session, but the pieces hadn't fallen quite yet. He put a hand on his friend's arm and pressed his lips together in a forced but genuine smile. 

"Listen," he tried again. "whatever this place looks like, it'll be a heaven to me, I'm sure." his fingers adjusted to the rough fabric of Oswald's coat. This really wasn't one of his finer looks, was it? He wondered somewhere in the back of his head if this safe-house would be stocked with extra clothes. "If I had to be on the _floor_ I'd still be getting the best sleep in years, friend. No worries."

Oswald raised an eyebrow and scoffed, turning away and starting their pace again, slower this time as their conversation became more and more light and easy to flow with. "Well," he ducked his head as they passed under a small construction way, keeping them close to the sides of the buildings as they moved. "I hardly think you sleeping on the floor will be necessary, but it's a compliment to know you'd let me take the bed if it were."

"Oh, no." Ed quickly raised a hand, grinning maliciously. "No, no. If there's a bed to take, I'll be the one on it, don't get me wrong."

"Oh, be a gentleman for once, will you?" his friend teased, feigning a tired and grouchy air to him, pulling his bad leg forwards a bit further than usual and stuttering in his step as he did so. Edward crossed his arms over his chest, pushing his glasses up to his face and raising an eyebrow. It was an undignified look that the Penguin sported that late afternoon, no doubt either the fault of a tailor or the lack of one to begin with altogether. These had either been the clothes he'd been incarcerated in, or Oswald had simply hired the wrong chump. Either way, neither did any favors for the poor man, who, as he readjusted his coat, got one button clipped on the other, which resulted in both being lost and clattering to the sidewalk pavement quietly. 

Oswald looked ready to explode again. 

"I am going to _kill_ that worthless vermin with his _own little_ _gold sewing kit._ " the man seethed, bristling as he pushed his collar back and turned away. Edward almost asked if he'd like the buttons back, but then thought better of it. The whole suit was a lost cause anyway.

"So, bad couturier business then?" he mused.

"You've no idea." Oswald snapped quickly. "The man agreed to meet me months ago to refit my suit and showed up holding some _priceless kit of materials_ , according to him. Likely all fool's gold, like the fool himself." his tone got darker, voice a bit quivery as he lost himself in his own little fit of anger. "Let me tell you now, old friend," Oswald's hand grabbed a lamp post as they came to a crosswalk, letting him lean back and look properly at Edward as he spoke. "had my father known about the crimes of fashion this tailor committed to my old dress pants, he'd've been driven to murder himself, I'm sure."

"I'm sure." Ed repeated, nodding in agreement. He almost liked the idea of the kind senior Van Dahl being some sort of repressed sadist like his son, oblivious to his own potential until some poor sap of an unskilled tailor messed up his sleeves. The idea, though ridiculous, made him smile a bit. However, there was no truth behind his little fantasy. Oswald was nothing like his parents, and for that he was thankful. If not for the stories of his lost and gentle family, Ed would've been left to assume his friend really was an emotionless rock after his extended time in Blackgate. It was refreshing to get a reminder, even if in the form of an earful, that Oswald remained a sentimentalist, still always with his loving parents on the mind even after everything. 

"We're close." his friend stated softly, gesturing with a black gloved finger.

Edward looked at the neighborhood he'd indicated towards, feeling a twinge of doubt in his gut. _A safe-house for the Penguin, and it was 'close' to..._ he kicked a broken bottle of beer to the side with his boot, scrunching his nose as it landed in a puddle that gleamed with spilled gasoline and mud. _It was close to this?_ Perhaps it was disappointment, or an unfulfilled sense of receiving what he was owed, but this wasn't the kind of joint he'd normally case to try to find such dangerous criminals as the _Riddler_ and _Penguin_. It was... quite the opposite. The air reeked liberally of an abandoned or otherwise likely unsuccessful fish market, and the buildings, though tall, seemed on some of their last limbs. It was one of the many places that had remained untouched after the fall of Gotham so many years ago, a relic in some people's eyes, a sickly reminder of worse days in his. There were broken windows and looming front entrances spray-painted with crude words and the occasional toothy grin. If Jeremiah Valeska hadn't been rendered a universal inside joke in the depths of Arkham, he'd've been proud that his mark was still spread around the city. 

Still, the empty and looted cars had been cleared, and the streetlights, though crooked in some places, were lit. It was a Gotham street. Ugly, perhaps, but maintained by the town like a dying dog too precious to be put down. _Though sometimes_ , Ed lamented bitterly as he and Oswald made their way past a pried open pot-hole, _animals need to be ridden of for their own good._

* * *

Descartes, in Part II of his _Discourse on Method_ , explained rather truthfully to his reader that the most accurate method of doubt was this - _nothing is to be admitted as true unless (a) it is free from all prejudicial judgments, and (b) it is so clearly and distinctly presented to the mind that in no circumstance can it ever be doubted_. So, really, that was on Ed. He shouldn't have doubted his friend, not when he knew him so very well. Yes, despite Oswald's squeezed suit and red face, despite his tendency to be thrown out of cars and to deliver mostly cheap threats, the man had class. He had the air about him that it was his _right_ to rule, not just his _passion_ or _ambition_. So why should Edward, of all people, the individual who'd known him the longest and most intimately, have ever assumed that they'd be sleeping in the slums?

Well, that was a bit of a stretch on the last bit. They were still very much in the slums. Ed did have to scrape his new shoes against the doorstep firmly to rid them of the muck that had clung to their soles, and even when he passed under the short entryway they'd swerved into an alley to get into, the distant scent of piss still lingered. But when the door opened, hidden by the dark shadows of the looming ghosts of Gotham's apartments, Edward suddenly felt... _warm_.

The place, first and foremost, had heat. A heat that settled through his coat, which Ed took off slowly, and rummaged through his muscles down to his bones. God, _it was homey_. It was like a miniature still-image of his memories of the Van Dahl mansion, decorated from hard-wood polished floor to curved and well-lit ceiling. All that, but just a little bit brighter. As Oswald shuffled in, abandoning his hat and suit-jacket on a footstool by the front entrance, he limped to each little light to flick them on, revealing bit by bit the beauty of their less-than-humble-abode. The walls were a quiet beige, a passable offense when they were covered by original paintings, and a fireplace that stole the living room's heart. And Ed's. He made for it, kneeling and removing his bowler hat to hold it over his chest.

"Glass?" he asked gently. The wood, visibly fake now that he had approached for a better look, was covered by a thick layer of glass, unable to be touched even if he'd wanted to examine it further. Oswald paused, adjusting his tie from the other side of the room as he flicked the last lamp on, and looked at Ed.

"Ah," he hummed. "electric fireplace. It still creates heat, it just doesn't use wood. Would you like that on, too?" 

"No, no." Edward shook his head, getting up from his knees and dusting off his pants. He felt extremely out of place now, in his black dress-shirt, tie, and glittering green pants - a stark contrast to Oswald, whose suit was just that, a real suit, which once the purple coat had been cast away, made him look much more at home in their surroundings, and in his body. _Perhaps it was because the dress shirt hadn't been touched by that apparently abysmal tailor._ "It's already much toastier than I've been in a while."

"Cold in Arkham still?" Oswald asked conversationally, turning back to a cupboard and opening it, grimacing before moving onto the next drawer. He shuffled around aimlessly, moving what appeared to be a fully-loaded pistol to the side as he searched.

"'Cold' is the kindest word I can muster, yes." Ed replied, running his hands over his chest, ridding of the wrinkles in his attire. He grinned widely as he made his way to his friend's side, just in time to see Oswald's gloves wrap themselves around a long, clean bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and pull it out of the back of the wine cupboard.

"And if you were to use not-so-kind words?" Oswald offered the bottle with one hand and a smile with a quirk of his lips.

"Well," Edward pondered, placing a hand over his and taking the drink by the hilt of the bottle. "I'd have to be drunk out of my mind to say something _bad_ about _Gotham_."

* * *

They got about half-way through the drink, passing it back and forth from one person to the next, before someone's stomach growled. Ed couldn't quite remember whose it had been, perhaps because after the first 15 minutes, the refreshingly nostalgic buzz of alcohol was an adequate enough distraction from anything _but_ Oswald's suddenly talkative demeanor. In fact, by the time Edward was standing up to make his way to the kitchen like a midtown housewife to search for food, his friend was grabbing at his sleeve before he could slip away, looking up at him from the large centerpiece chair he'd chosen to lounge in and grinning.

"You really want _beans_?" Oswald asked. Ed shifted, a little uncomfortable at having his dress-shirt manhandled by a slightly tipsy and suddenly garrulous Penguin. He looked at him quizzically. 

"Beans?" he repeated, pulling his arm away and readjusting his outfit back to its previously pristine condition.

"Beans." Oswald confirmed, watching him. "It's a safe-house, it's all non-perishables and cheap wines. Probably some oatmeal as well. You really want _beans_ for dinner?"

Edward looked towards the hall where he could see the shadowy kitchen, a slightly dismal display in comparison to their ravishing living quarters, but not a place he suspected he'd be spending much time in regardless. It was greyish-brown, and the counters appeared to be a cheap sort of marble from where he stood. Nothing impressive, mind you, but he felt grateful enough from his perspective to even have a kitchen to begin with. 

"It's my first meal, too." his friend added, and Ed's head turned back to look at him. Oswald had, since taking up the throne-like seat in the middle of the room, undone his decorative tie smidgen by smidgen as he and Edward had shared pleasantries over the coffee table between them and sipped from the wine bottle bit by bit. Ed himself had also let go, his green-tinted and entirely useless glasses abandoned to the table part-way through a throaty laugh. It wasn't any use, pretending that he could see through them, that is. And perhaps that should've been the first indicator that Oswald had not been the individual who had chosen his new work-outfit and instructed the destruction of the Wayne tower. Ed should've known, detail-oriented as he was, that his friend would've taken into account immediately that Edward's eyesight was that of a bat. 

Eugh, _a bat_. 

What had he been saying?

"Since I got out of Blackgate, I mean." Oswald was muttering, eyes fixed on the floor. "I was so set on... on killing Gordon, I suppose. And then it became a matter of finding you..." Ed was unsure if his friend was even speaking to him now. He breathed a little laugh.

"So focused on gutting Jim you forgot about your _own_ gut for a moment."

Oswald glanced at him awkwardly. "I - yes, I suppose so." he grinned in synchronization with Ed, who was relieved his addition wasn't found to be vexatious in any way to his companion's mostly one-sided conversation. He leaned forwards, placing his hands on the armrest of Oswald's seat. 

"I assume, then..." he said slowly, looking at Oswald with a pensive delight. "that you have some sort of _plan_ for dinner?"

His friend actually lost his smile a bit, and though it was still present as he readjusted his weight to the back of his chair and sat up more assuredly, it wasn't the most genuine grin Edward had ever seen. "Well," Oswald admitted humbly. "I don't... actually. I don't know what I was saying. I suppose we could just have beans, I just don't believe..." 

Ed understood entirely why Oswald's tongue seemed stuck in his throat. The alcohol wasn't doing any favors for free-thinkers like them, and even if it'd only been a quarter of a bottle each, it'd also been ten years. Unless his friend had procured the ill-affectionately titled 'toilet wine' Edward had heard tall tales of, there was no doubt in his mind that the Penguin could've even been rendered a _lightweight_ during the period of time he'd been absent from the city for, a terrifying but all too possible outcome. But, then again of course, Ed had never considered himself any sort of expert on alcoholism. Perhaps the man was just genuinely that hard-pressed over beans.

"What about Chinese?" Edward turned away, making his idle time back towards the couch he'd been unceremoniously sprawled over for the past 30 minutes, long legs like the limbs of a bridge spilled on top of the coffee table as he'd spoken.

Oswald watched him find his place on the cushions again before he replied. "Chinese..." he just lamely echoed, and Ed shrugged, going in for the wine once he'd made himself comfortable.

"It's no _gourmet-four-course-meal-spectacular_ ," he conceded, sympathizing with where his friend's concern might be deriving from. "but, well... back when we first met, it certainly felt like one." His fingers drummed against the trim of the bottle as he tipped it back, taking a sip. The cap, to their immediate dismay and then eventual delight, had disappeared some 25 minutes ago, clinking to the ground and rolling off in a fashion that completely removed the option of even bothering to look for it from Ed's brain, who didn't want to be on his knees for a cheap wine glass anyway. However, as time passed, it became pretty clear that they'd be going through this bottle and however many more there were in the cabinets eventually anyway, so it evolved into less-and-less of an issue until soon Oswald was kidding that perhaps it'd been a bit of a blessing, considering that prior to its loss they'd been struggling increasingly to screw it back onto the glass each time they drank anyway.

Before Ed could place the glass to his side like one might place a child onto a pillowcase, Oswald first stuck out his palm and gestured with a now ungloved claw. His fingers were larger now too, his hands a bit rougher around the edges, Edward noticed, as he relinquished hold of the alcohol to his companion. There was a scar that appeared almost like a child's drawing of a lightning bolt where Oswald's thumb met his wrist. It took his curiosity with him when it retreated back under his collar and Oswald spoke up again.

"I never liked Chinese, is the thing. I'm not a - well, I'm not a person with cheap tastes anymore. Tried," he granted. "in Blackgate. Didn't take."

"You tried Chinese in Blackgate?" Edward raised one eyebrow and grinned a bit when Oswald coughed.

"No, no." he clarified immediately, smiling as well when he met Ed's eye and saw the glint in it from above the bottle. "I can't begin to believe that Arkham's food has improved at all since my previous visit, but Blackgate's did no favors to the palate either. Imagine swamp mud but disguised as meat."

"Oh," Edward raised his lip, baring his teeth a bit at just the memory of his breakfast that morning _alone_. "I don't need to imagine."

"Then you can understand why I couldn't stand it for very long." said Oswald, tipping the refreshment in his hand forwards as he spoke and swirling the little liquid left inside around. Ed watched, a bit transfixed. The green tint of the glass made the red wine look a bit purple. It looked like a movie shot, to see Oswald's slightly undone tie moving in and out of focus as the bottle went back and forth in his grip. "I had no allies, you see, on the inside or out. Had no way of contacting even my _enemies_ if I'd wanted to. So, I made some. It didn't end well at first."

"Your hand?" Edward lifted his own, wiggling his thumb in a silent query.

"Mm." Oswald hummed, looking at his own, where the thick and pale scar tissue was planted on his skin. A permanent sort of ink. "My hand, yes, and very nearly my lung as well."

Ed was silent for a moment, letting this settle in his brain like grease to a frying pan. He stirred it around a bit, and then continued. "I assume you dealt with them?"

His friend paused where he was. He was quiet, seemingly sad, and for the first time Edward really did realize how old Oswald was now. In time, he thinned his mouth and spoke. 

"I didn't." Oswald admitted, as if it took every bit of power in him to do so. "I never caught his name, he was transferred the next day, and for the next six months I felt close to nothing at all. I don't think I would've killed him even if he'd let me. Not back then, at least."

Ed watched him, waiting for him to continue, but what he was expecting he didn't understand fully himself. There was not much more to be said on the matter, and though it was an intimate confession, Edward immediately understood why it had been said. 

Oswald hadn't been that bad since his mother's death, had he?

Edward slipped a hand into his pocket, thumbed the item that his fingers laced themselves around for a moment, and then pulled out his broken glasses. They were missing a large shard of them, and dirty beyond the ability to be polished even if there was a cleaning solution hidden somewhere in the walls of their safe-house. Still, he'd slipped them into his pants when he'd changed that day in the warehouse, a 'just in case' option at worst.

_At best?_

"These were my glasses... of over 15 years, actually. Prescriptions could be updated, but I never got new frames." Ed said, his voice low in his throat as he leaned forwards, smiling wistfully. "It's all they let me keep when I was admitted, like usual, but they didn't fix them or offer me new ones when they broke. I didn't ask them to." he turned them around in his grasp and placed them on the glass top of the table. They clinked as he settled them in a way still visible for his friend. " _But when I look at these, I don't feel sadness anymore_..." 

When Ed looked up, Oswald's eyes were aimed, set on the shattered remnants of his glasses. There was a familiar blush to the sides of his cheeks, his mouth was agape just a smidgen, and Edward wasn't at all surprised when a tear appeared as he blinked to look back up at him. _He'd been thinking about that same moment as well._

" _I feel gratitude_." Oswald completed, voice breaking part-way. 

Edward flashed him the gentlest smile, and then leaned back. 

"I made a mistake." he said, in a manner that clearly indicated to his friend that their conversation, whatever it had just been about, was done. Ed watched as Oswald wiped his eye and then resumed his admission. "When I said that we ordered Chinese food when we met, I made a mistake. We actually met in the GCPD. It might've been around a year before our woods exchange, I don't recall."

"Yes," Oswald said, eye contact broken. He'd taken the last sip of wine from the bottle as Edward had recited the memory, and now had nothing left to do but stare at it as they spoke. "I remember. Not fondly, however."

"Yeah, yes. Lord," Ed laughed at the recollection of his spindly limbs, how ill-fitted they had been to any pairs of pants he had ever had the ambition to purchase. Eventually Oswald would introduce him to the craft of tailoring, but back then he'd only had 5 bottoms that fit him properly, and it showed. It showed immensely. "it's not a fond memory for me either. However, Oswald," he said tentatively. "I believe fully that despite our encounter in the police department, or the woods, or even in the days prior... I believe that I didn't really meet you until that meal."

Oswald breathed very slowly, and though Ed wanted to say more, there were no further sentiments that particularly came to mind. He'd said his piece, spoken his point, and made a profession so previously undisclosed that it rivaled the extremely amiable performance done by Oswald just minutes before. He'd never told him how much coming to know his friend had meant to him, had never expressed it in any way that felt like it justified his emotions, but perhaps that was alright now. 

Oswald's head lifted, and the bottle slipped from his hand as it did. 

"You know what, old friend? Chinese sounds delicious." 

* * *

The meal was neither of any particularly high quality or of any particularly remarkable standard. It was quite simply Chinese food, from a menu Edward hadn't ordered from in well over 3 years even prior to his incarceration. He'd stammered his way through a weak attempt at recalling what his old regular order had been, and forgotten completely to tack on Oswald's demand for double the sweet 'n sour pork, but it still arrived on time, his friend's cellular ringing just as the clock hit 12 minutes to three in the morning. 

"I'll be right back." Oswald had said softly, like the comfortable silence that'd ensued between them was some sort of path of eggshells to be walked. Ed had just nodded from the couch and stared at his hand as he heard the door open and then shut. They'd agreed to give the driver the wrong address and just meet him at the end of the road, but only on the terms that Oswald was to carry a loaded pistol, and Edward was to disguise his voice over the phone.

Not that _The_ _Red Dragon's House of Delights_ was on any particular hunt for hungry criminals at the stroke of three AM, but one could never be too safe, Ed had insisted. 

Oswald tapped his fork softly onto the closest wine glass to him, which had been dangerously nearing empty for the past 2 minutes now. He wiped his quite clean lips with a napkin and chuckled a bit. "I tell you," he stated loudly. "if Gotham's delivery services aren't used to a little light gunplay here and there, they've got to start fixing their hiring process."

They'd been joking amicably for the past 7 minutes over the look of horror on their delivery man's face when Oswald had revealed his pistol part-way through payment. 

"Yes, yes!" Edward put down his glass just before it touched his lips, shoulders shaking from laughter. "God, yes. Imagine accepting a drop-off at close to sunrise in the Narrows and being _surprised_ when a gun is involved."

His friend leaned forwards. Ed wondered briefly if he should mention that his now quite loose tie was dangling close to where it ended and the Chow Mein began, but his eyes just snapped up to Oswald instead when he continued. "Quite frankly," he added softly, grin forging its way through his aged features. "I was hardly rude, anyway. He had no reason otherwise to be alarmed."

"Other than the fact that you're the recently escaped ex-king of Gotham." Edward tipped his glass forwards in a silent toast, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, please." Oswald raised his own glass. He'd chosen a white wine for their second bottle, and it was about the same yellow as their walls. It gleamed under the dull glow of the few lights Ed had kept on as his friend had set up their dinner over the coffee table. They now sat in a cruel replication of how they once had however many years ago, legs spread and arms outstretched this time in the most comfortable ways imaginable. Though there was still a fireplace, still a couch, and still an inviting conversation, the similarities ended there, and they had long since left Ed's thoughts. Initially, when Oswald had brought the next bottle out and poured their wine above the fireplace, there'd been some trepidation to his actions. As if, perhaps, the man had been overthinking his own performance the same way that Edward had been as well.

After so long, however, the only thing that stuck out in his brain about that night was the feeling of Elijah Van Dahl's robe. It was itchy where it met the skin of his forearms, but otherwise of decent fit and make. It was also the last anxiety that left Ed's rather perturbed brain. It slipped away with the third or fourth sip of wine, the slightly sour taste of _that_ disappearing under the shrimp he'd fumbled with his chopsticks over to grab and swallow. 

"Right." Ed said correctionally, reworking his position on the couch to a location where he could see his friend much easier. The edge of it held his weight firmly as it slid back lower and lower. "Current king, my apologies. Just not with that... _bat addict_ floating around. _Baddict? Battaddict_..." 

Oswald strolled over the ventured wordplay as if it hadn't even been attempted in the first place. "I refuse... to relinquish... even an _inch_ of garbage from Gotham's _dirtiest alleyway_ to that..." he waved his hand, before turning it into a fist, bringing it down to his leg. Oswald's eyes were narrowed into slits as he seemed to attempt to focus his vision on the floor. " _Like we haven't got enough costumed cretins around this town..._ " he added under his breath.

Ed tried not to wonder for too long if he was grouped into _that_ category, and instead turned to feeding his mounting curiosity. "You think he wants land?"

"No." Oswald said immediately, with a confident dismissal that Ed hardly felt he had the sobriety to argue with. " _No_ , he's a... I don't know what he is. _He's a dead man_."

"A dead man?" Edward looked down at his cup, considering adding more wine to the mixture as he contemplated his friend's words. "A dead man's... likely what _we'd_ be, if we tried anything _now_."

He'd worded that incorrectly, hadn't he? _Perhaps more wine wasn't the answer._

"What I mean to say is," Ed started up again, watching as Oswald went in for more food as he spoke. There was a calm fascination radiating from him, as if he was _really_ listening to what he was trying to explain, albeit doing so in a clearly tipsy fashion. Was a discussion like this best served teetotal? Abstinent from alcohol, in a confidential warehouse, somewhere locked away from even the _idea_ of spiritual rapport? Maybe. He languidly recommenced his point. "I believe there are better ways to deal with that man rather than with guns blazing."

"Well, _old friend_ ," Oswald collected himself over his dish. "guns blazing has yet to fail me thus f -"

"Other than in the case of James Gordon. Today. Not 8 hours ago, I'd say, even." 

Yes, that shut Oswald up, even if not in the genial way they'd been conversing with one another up until this point. Edward smiled a bit, fiddled with the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb, and then sat up.

"Oswald," he began slowly. "don't get me wrong, your methods are always..." he bared his teeth in a toothy and cocked grin very slowly, brain fiddling with the many words he could use to describe his friend's masterpiece of a brain. " _exciting_. However, hardly also the most reliable, wouldn't you agree?"

There was a lapse in the tête-à-tête prior to Oswald's reply, which came simply in the form of a grunt of admittance. "Perhaps." was all Ed needed anyway to continue.

"Right, then you _must_ understand... brawn is often done away with by brain." 

"Brain?"

"Yes, well..." for some reason, Edward felt a bit self-effacing suddenly. He watched his friend through partially lidded eyes. His bedroom, only meters away, felt miles from his reach - somewhere in him, despite the fatigue, he loathed the idea of moving from where he sat. Inching forwards, he began to pick up the threads of his thoughts where they'd been scattered. "I've got one, haven't I?" 

Oswald seemed to frown, but then laugh, and laugh some more. Nothing spectacular, but it was enough to get Ed's maudlin head out of the gutter and screwed back onto his neck, where it sat safely as they delved back into their cozy station of enjoyment. "Yes," Oswald conceded courteously. "I'll admit, you do have one. Even - even if it hardly seems it when you're _like this_."

Ed could only be left to assume that 'like this', and the way that his companion gestured towards him gently, had all to do with his inebriated state. "If you think you've been any better than myself tonight, you're worse off than I'd last thought." he replied flippantly.

"I think I've been handling my drink better than you." Oswald groused. The fingers of his left hand fumbled awkwardly with his dress shirt's upper buttons, which Ed was only partially realizing now were quite tight around his neck. His keen, though partially blind eyes caught on quite quickly to the issue. They were plastic, as well as being fitted incorrectly, which wasn't normal. Not for the things that regularly decorated the Penguin's closet, at least.

"Cheap shirt..." Edward muttered, placing his wine glass on the table. He reached forwards and adjusted the cuffs of his own top back down to his wrist before nimbly undoing the first two inexpensive links. Oswald allowed him, looking away partially however to his food, appearing slightly discomposed.

"I told you," he griped in an undertone. "cheap tailor."

Ed hummed. "Expensive, though, right? How overpriced was he?"

"Considering this outfit nearly choked me today? I'd place his skills at around a 10 dollar mark, at most."

"Hah," he laughed a bit at Oswald's teasing, his constant whinging over the most unimportant things a bit of a relief in some regards. The conversation flowed easier when one or more of the party involved was nothing more than a moaning pile of rubbish. "you're always right, so I won't argue."

" _Always right?_ " Oswald seemed to lay his disquiet at the door, basking a bit too long for Ed to feel perfectly comfortable within the compliment.

"Well," he paused his ministrations and pulled his hand away from Oswald's collar shortly, tapping his fingers on his lap as he leaned off. "perhaps not _always_ right."

"Oh, well -" there was a beat of silence as his friend collected his thoughts, playfully smiling for a just a brief second before restarting his sentence entirely. " _You're_ always right, you know that. Perhaps such an _intelligence_ like yourself can be cajoled into gifting me the same honorable title."

Oswald was very clearly drunk. However, Edward was very clearly a narcissist. He keened at the simple and sarcastic praise with an ardent severity, perhaps visibly enough so that his friend noticed, but he hardly cared. Cocking his head back, Ed kept his eyes, half-closed as they were under the weight of the hours ticking by, fixed on Oswald deviously. 

"Antoine de Salle described love as _an egotism of two_. A shared self-worth, if you will." he said, turning his head to the coffee table in front of them. He regarded their dinner with slight interest, a bit tentative from how contently full he felt from the wine to touch any more of the feast laid out in front of him.

Oswald, for all he was worth, didn't seem particularly interested in the topic change. "Sounds like he married correctly." 

"Oh, on the contrary. It was the 1400's when he did so, so she was 50 or so years younger than him." 

"Ah." his companion scrunched his nose in distaste, and also in a rather undignified fashion. He dug a fork into the noodles, twisting it around to get more and more food fit tight around the cutlery piece as he spoke again. "Have any more love anecdotes, my friend? Perhaps one spoken by a sane man?"

"No poet is sane, Oswald." Ed corrected, bouncing the leg that touched the floor a bit. "You don't spend hours on a single line of writing and come out of the experience particularly well-balanced."

"Mmm." Oswald hummed around his fork, eyes meeting Edward's. He nodded in quite agreement, though Ed struggled to imagine his friend as the creative type. Not one who'd ever done such a thing to begin with, that is.

"Jeremy Taylor," he started again, this time with a bit more confidence. "was likely not sane either. However, he said that love was _a friendship set on fire_ , and I've always loved that."

Oswald peered at him as he chewed, and Ed peered back.

"Most philosophers, of course, were sexist though... or racist, or homophobic, there's just always _one_ little detail to throw you off like that." he continued. "But for all their bigotry and hate, most also had a _boatload_ to say about love." Edward licked his lip, then ran his tongue over a front molar, a little lost in the recollections of his old studies. Perhaps in his youth he'd been a fan of romanticism, of the concept of a Dionysian ghost that possessed all of humanity, but as he'd grown older, that had pooled at his feet with the blood of every lover he'd encountered. Shakespeare himself couldn't have thought up a greater tragedy than Ed's dating career. "Ironic, no?" he mused. 

"People driven by hate tend to also be driven by love." Oswald said immediately, which caught Edward's attention. He wished, somewhere in the front of his thoughts, that he could see better, but there wasn't a chance in hell that he'd be donning the snapped history of his once usable glasses. Instead, he just brushed a thumb to his chin, and focused in an almost headache-inducing-fashion on where he was hazily aware his friend's wide eyes were. 

"You think racists are driven by love?" he posed the question in a hesitant, but mostly amused fashion. They were completely pissed, either way, and the situation only worsened in both their plastered minds with every dip of the bottle against the head of a glass. If Oswald began losing his tongue, Edward was going to pick up the pieces of the conversation, reshape it into an opportunity to poke fun at the legendary Penguin of Gotham, who looked very much like he'd swallowed a bug as he shifted left and right in a gawkish and awkward fashion. 

"Ed..." he started, but the other just shook his hand quickly, dismissing the entire response before it could devolve further.

"No, we're drunk, that was a stupid query. What did you _actually_ mean by that?"

Oswald adjusted himself in his seat a bit at the 'drunk' comment, more than a little defensive still it seemed over his tipsy state. His _quite_ tipsy state, regardless of however incessantly Edward imagined his friend would've insisted otherwise. 

"I meant _most_ hatred... the intelligent kind, not the unreasonable or fearful sort... it's almost always driven by love." he said slowly, picking his words as carefully as one might pick a child to take in, or a lover to marry. Oswald spoke as though the thoughts he was voicing were going to cause an ineffable rippling effect throughout the rest of his life. He continued. "Perhaps," he reviewed hastily. "perhaps not love for the thing one hates, but still. Whether it's jealousy, or obligation, or revenge or _whatever, whatever_... most of those things peddle back to love. Love for _something_."

"Your hatred for Gordon?" Ed smiled.

"Easy!" Oswald pointed his fork at him, eager and pleased with his addition. "And a wonderful example. I hate James Gordon out of a place of love, sure, _obviously not for him though_." he, debauched and wasted as he was, seemed quite still capable of a very sober grimace as he recalled what Edward assumed now might as well be his nemesis. "I love this city, I love what I created, and what I made come true. Jim, in all his holier-than-thou shit, Jim stands a real chance at throwing it all away."

"He did." Edward said. "He threw it away for 10 years."

"He threw _me_ away for 10 years." Oswald corrected, and Ed felt a twinge of selfless gratification at his words, both pride and partial awe heating his already pink cheeks. "But me - everything I've done for this town and the rats that inhabit it - neither died. Neither can _ever_ die, as long as that cheating bastard is still feeding his own high horse..." 

Edward placed his arm over the cushions of the couch beside him, moving to better face his friend and tipping a glass over his lip - whether the cup itself was his or Oswald's, it didn't matter. He took another drink. "You..." he swallowed again, catching his tongue before he faced biting it in some drunken stupor. "you completely astound me, Oswald." he drawled. "Now, what about _the Bat_?"

Oswald's raised eyebrow was a nonverbal advancement enough to continue.

"I mean, you hate him. Where does that come from? Love for _insects_? Jealousy over his fashion sense?" 

_He did wear a lot of leather._

"I don't hate him." Oswald admitted, and it made Ed do a mental double-take. He leaned forwards a bit in intrigue. "I hate anyone who thinks this city is theirs. They didn't build this place, and they certainly weren't there to destroy it. Decades ago these... these streets _meant_ something, the people's fears were formally signed and printed off by the Mayor himself. You remember when I was in control?"

"Of office?" Edward slid a hand over his own knee. "I believe that rings a bell." 

"The Bat would be on his knees _already_ if he knew half of what we accomplished together. What we're going to accomplish again..."

"It really has been that long, hm?" Edward hummed, looking down at where their legs touched. It had been well over their 10 years apart that they'd sat together like this, with even their rather domestic and childish 9 months bent over the submarine together spent quite distant, and not without tensions. 

When Ed's fingers meandered, drifting over the sheets of the cushions and over Oswald's humerus, it seemed just then that there was actually some kind of mutual understanding coming into focus. As if some sort of ancient agreement had been made suddenly public, Edward was filled with the homey sensation of putting on childhood shoes and finding they still fit perfectly. Oswald's hand dropped to his thigh quite literally. A simper coasted over Ed's features.

"We are going to completely ruin this town." he promised. It was the most intimate and threatening thing he'd said to anyone in years.

"We will, won't we?" was the romantic and dangerous reply. The gallons of wine stored aimlessly away in the wooden cupboards likely yearned to be as addicting as Edward found Oswald's eyes on him were becoming, even if he could barely see them through the visual snow clouding his sight. Edward's smile turned malicious.

"Well then, Mayor Cobblepot -" he began, and paused to relish in the immediate muffled laughter that ensued from behind the hand that Oswald drew over his mouth before continuing. "- you will be pleased to hear that I have a _fantastic_ plan to rid of your new political opponent." 

Oswald squeezed his leg with one hand and waved the other in an impassioned mockery of how he'd used to when they were younger. "Quick as ever, my Chief of Staff, always proving yourself a flawless choice for my team. What is it you have in mind?"

Ed's hand from Oswald's arm retracted and joined the other one as he clasped them together in front of his chest excitedly. " _Riddles_." he announced, and his fingers splayed dramatically as he did so.

As expected, though nonetheless a disappointing result, his associate's fingers lifted from the fabric of his dress pants lightly, before withdrawing entirely from their place on Edward's thigh. He didn't allow Oswald to interrupt, however, eager to prove some sort of point prior to too much judgement being passed.

"That's not the first step, of course." he waved a finger in a disapproving manner, as if to scold his colleague on his quick objection. "First thing's first, we need to spread the word. Though I'm not talking about billboards, which I would _love_ to see, a little hot gossip here and there on the streets about some new chump trying to end crime... that'd be a nice first kick."

"You think that common criminals are going to kill that Bat? _You think I'd let them?_ " Oswald still seemed condemning of his ideas, but he was quite joyously nowhere near finished.

"I don't know." Edward admitted truthfully. "I couldn't tell you. I had no gun on me tonight, no idea there was a bat-suited-lunatic to be wary of to begin with. Who knows how bulletproof that armor is? And what good would going in with guns raised do if the answer is 'very'?"

"I never said anything about guns." Oswald protested, but Ed just groaned deeply, completely dismal.

"Grenades, rocket-launchers, even missiles for fuck's sake - Oswald, that outfit was hideous for a _reason_. The man's clearly risked a lot of aesthetic decisions for the sake of being virtually unkillable... or at least appearing as such."

"Mhm." was the dismissing response he received. Ed sucked in a breath, a bit perturbed but generally speaking still determined for some sort of approval on this.

"We let the trash take the trash out." he tried once more. "Or at least, we let the trash determine the most efficient way to. Do you understand?"

"I'm not an imbecile." Oswald lamented forthwith. "How could I not get this? You want a couple idiots to throw their punches to see how hard it is to dent him, fine. You could've just said that."

"Well, I... I don't _just_ want to do that, is the thing." Edward drew a breath, feeling both annoyed and anxious, a potion of emotions that did no favors to his alcohol-raddled-brain, which was doing flips trying to find the words to continue. "You know how I mentioned riddles? Oswald, what are those if not just _experiments_? Phase two to this is understanding the brain behind the brawn. I completely refuse to let you pull an explosive on a man who might've been taught to defuse them since he was in diapers."

"' _Let_ me'?"

Clearly, Oswald was not receiving any favors from _his_ soused head either.

"Are you not processing a word of this?" Edward snapped. He dropped both his feet onto the floor, planting them there and pressing his fingers to his eyes in the most exasperated appearing way he could muster. " _If you go back with no brains, you'll end up in chains_." he said, voice soggy with verbal honey. "Was that childish enough for you to get? Could it get any worse?"

Oswald was staggeringly unaffected by his teasing when he snapped his head up to look him in the eye. Their words had been inching more-and-more away from playful as the rather stupid exchanges passed, and Ed found himself almost embarrassed when his intimate furrowed his eyebrows and seemed to pensively take him in for a second, before huffing and turning on the couch as well, sitting the same way Edward found himself in so that the tips of their knees clonked together gawkishly and his hand could once more find its place on his leg. 

It was somehow much nicer this time. 

Oswald tapped a finger against his knee. "It could probably stand to be a bit worse, yes." he joked gently.

Ed... laughed. He laughed a bit, under his breath, and looked at the ground as he did so in mounting shame. He'd been unreasonable, yes, but in his mind, so had his other half. Either way, neither of them appeared to at all have a sound image in their brain of how this was going to go. In fact, Edward didn't even know how long this safe-house was going to be their makeshift home for. He didn't even know if he cared yet.

"I don't know where to go from here." he divulged, his voice a whisper quiet enough that he was surprised when Oswald reacted.

"From here?" he wrinkled a crease of Edward's pants thoughtfully, before tapping his fingers bit by bit closer up his bony structure towards his waist. "Probably up, I'd imagine."

" _Up_." Ed thumbed his nose at the word. "What, because we've hit rock bottom?"

"I think, rather, because we're together again." Oswald professed, and it made the heart beating somewhere in Edward's quite empty chest begin to perform the tango.

It did not help in the slightest that he also found himself unable to gather a reason to pull Oswald's rough hands off where they'd landed, one tracing the bump where his dress pants met his tucked in top and the other itching at the couch by his knee. It was as though every second Oswald's fingertips were not being bounced exuberantly on the top of Ed's leg due to his incessant need for stimulation, they inched closer to death. There was no reproachful passion for these actions however, not a single one in Edward's brain. Neither, though, was there any particular surprise or childish shyness. Perhaps there was a phase in their friendship at one point where these kinds of implicated emotions would've summoned the hidden spirit of a lovesick High school girl in Edward, would've made him do spins and loops and twirl around his bedroom like a maniac 'til he dropped. This, though - this time, this place, this conversation - it inspired nothing but a gentle ease in him. 

Consequently, he found it all-too-simple to reciprocate the kiss entirely. 

Oswald had leaned first, and it was with all the tentativeness a man so rough and aged could muster. The closer Ed got, the more his eyes came to focus on what he was seeing. Into view came a wet tear that had long since disappeared, but left its snail's trail on Oswald's cheek. Into view came the pink, lobster-like hue of his nose from the ugly deformity that was his gorgeous blush. Into view came pale, parted lips and flaring nostrils, a blue and green eye coming in and out of focus in that order, age-lines that creased the sides of his face from what Edward could hope was a lot of smiling, but presumed was a lot of screaming.

It lasted for 3 seconds, but it was the aftermath he enjoyed most.

"You..." Oswald exhaled as Ed's fingers brushed over his forehead, following his hairline until they were ducking under his ear and cupping his jaw. 

"Me?" Edward didn't understand how such an uncomplicated action like speech could be reworked so subtly in seconds, but he realized he preferred it much more when his words were conveyed against Oswald's lips than when they weren't. 

"We, um... I wish I could say that we need to discuss this..." Oswald said softly, head moving slightly to the side so that they were no longer lip-to-lip, still dragging his own mouth serenely over Edward's cheek and jaw as he continued. "but..."

"It feels like we have, haven't we?" Ed finished easily. "For a long time."

Neither of them budged much for the first few 30 seconds of silence that lapsed. Neither of them thought much either.

"I _do_ feel on fire." Oswald declared after just a couple more quiet moments. He'd drawn a circle over Edward's knee with his scarred hand that now found itself hovering there, and Ed had responded in kind with a hum of both gratitude and quiet amusement at the still delicate way his friend moved himself. Oswald just resumed his thought where he'd placed it on the conversational clothing line. "Like Jeremy Trainor said. Er - Jeremy... _Fisher_?"

Edward chuckled lowly and turned to lay another soft peck on his darling's mouth. "Jeremy Fisher is a fictional frog." he muttered tenderly. "Jeremy Taylor was a non-fictional priest-turned-poet. You were on the right track."

"You have a scab on the inside of your lower lip." was all Oswald seemed able to counter with.

Well, then, Edward would look into that in the morning, not alone anymore in what would surely be the slow and painful process of recovery. He'd do a lot of things in the morning with the present company, actually. But most of all, they'd recover, touch-by-touch they would undo the decade apart the same way they would also dream of unraveling the city's guts for their punishment. Perhaps Edward's nails would eventually stop finding their way to old scars, and perhaps Oswald's shoulders would eventually stop shaking every time he stood.

Perhaps, but not surely. 

Maybe, but not undoubtedly.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter.com/r_ddler


End file.
